Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Kranj / Downtown / Slovenia
Concert date: 28.09.2013
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: €5.00
Sometimes it happens… Ahhh. You find yourself smack in the middle of the most godless metal meat grinder in the universe. Suspecting nothing. All the better. The shock hits so much harder through live flesh. Tanker from Bosnia and Herzegovina were on the bill, but they got stranded somewhere deep in the Balkans on the road. The organizer quickly plugged the hole with an excellent fix, though. The seasoned KVGL crew just can’t leave a crowd hanging (another bow to Bidot and Zavrl). As a replacement, the organizer offered a last-minute slot to Paragoria! And the good old dildo came winking its way in too. Not even old. But good, absolutely. Dead Dildo Drome! Festival saved! You step into the venue. Great turnout, considering Rdeča Ostriga in Škofja Loka was blasting out black metal on the very same day at the very same hour.
The opening of the mini metal festival in the middle of Downtown went to the youngsters! Ambitious youngsters. GMB are untamed kids with a lush musical imagination and heralds of a new wave in metal! Let’s call it the new wave of extreme obscenities! Even though they sound retro! Obituary, a bit of early Sepultura, and for a pinch maybe, just a smidge, Pantera. Brutalization in full dose. No holding back. Give them a billion semitones, »palm muted shredding« and the pedal to the metal over a single melodic line any day. That’s the stuff. Poison! From start to finish in top gear. Guitarist Klemen Govekar, who sailed over from Armaroth, has found in his buddies Niki Krmelj (bass), Anže Podobnik (drums) and David Orehar (growling) a brand new, razor-sharp club! The band played their first EP »Gore Obsessed Violent Exhibition« in full, with the key tracks Nebelsheinwerfer, Painapple Express and Land Of The Dead. The quartet is forged from real steel and has a massive set of balls right from the get-go. Above all, that retro sound is a treat, conjuring up images and memories of some legendary bands who, in authentic musical »provocation«, experimentally mangled thrash into a form all their own and so popularized the brutal beginnings of death metal. Primordial oomph – Govekar can fill a ton of space with his guitar and build a convincing, crumbling wall of sound. Slovenian Obituary? Not quite, but enough of a hint of what’s what for anyone who doesn’t know the band yet. Bravo, guys and girl. Keep it up!
Paragoria, formerly The Scourge, are a thrash/death/groove metal quartet from the Upper Savinja Valley who recently dropped their debut studio album »Decomposition Of Mind« on On Parole Productions. That’s how it goes. Paragoria are absolute oddballs on the Slovenian metal scene. Yet another outstanding reinforcement for Slovenia’s extreme wing. I can say right now they’re one of the hottest and most promising freshly stitched-together lineups of seasoned, talented musical masters, with many, many more goodies to deliver down the road. The quartet of Matjaž Parfant (vocals, guitar), Jernej Štorgelj (vocals, bass), Primož Brezovnik (guitar) and Matija Kadliček (drums) took their positions in a way that fits the stature the name Paragoria stands for. Grimly scowling lads fired up their chainsaws and the Downtown stage soon looked like a military proving ground for testing new Pershing missiles, »ground – air – ground«. If my eyes and ears didn’t deceive me that night, these guys use as many as three different basic shades of growl. The left guitar, that is Matjaž, handles the most »pleasant«, lower-aimed death metal croak, while bassist Jernej uses two different growls. A lower one and a higher one, which would pass in metalcore too. Now and then you catch a more thrashed-out riff combined with an outstanding feel for big, voluminous groove, and when the growl heads toward the vocals in those moments, it can smell a bit like Machine Head. The guys served up a remarkable mix, nicely combining the grabby groove curtain of metal butchery, backed by a perfect rhythmic crutch, and on top of that they threw in a handful of intricately built transitions, lovely proof of the quartet’s incredible focus and the maturity of their talent. Paragoria played their debut full-on. Perpetual motion, kinetics, a game of great fire and dedication. This is a band that, let’s hope, becomes one of the main pillars of the extreme branch of Slovenian metal! »Decomposition of Mind« is an album the band can truly be proud of!
Dead Dildo Drome are no strangers anymore. With a pinch of Monty Pythonesque logic, this big-hearted quintet smashes many of the barriers we Slovenians all too often carry around in our uptight heads. With it, they can »peel« you like a banana. The key? One word. Šero! But let’s take it from the top. Members of God Scard, Language Of Thought Hypothesis and Leaf Fat, united under the Dead Dildo Drome banner, have been convincingly proving for a while now that they’re a crew of exceptional talents who, with their eclecticism and thick charisma of uniquely provocative rage, add a one-of-a-kind shade of color to the otherwise vivid palette of Slovenian metal achievements in 2013! If anyone says what they play is just metalcore, that label is way too loose! The band is an incredible blend of the musical expression of the groups its members come from! Where the hell is the studio debut “Cowboys from Kredar’tza«, guys? Supposedly right around the corner! That makes it one of the most anticipated albums brewing in the Slovenian metal underground!
The band is sharp and perfectly in sync. All eyes naturally go to the fiery charisma of Robert Šercer. Šero, an incorrigible lover of pajamas and leather gloves, hypnotically pulled all the attention onto himself with his stunning stage performance and, with chameleon-like commitment, brilliantly played up the contrasting moods the band kept lining up. Šero for president! No beating around the bush! With outstanding vocal acrobatics – I’d dare say he swallowed a metal lathe that then got unfortunately stuck in his throat – the man ruled the stage with the vehemence of serious experience and a ton of gig mileage. It was lovely to watch him enjoy himself while wasted, smoked-out local »dudes« of various ages dangled in front of his nose. At first Šero even egged them on in a »hooligan« way, but later they were slowly getting on his nerves. But, as so many times before. Every corner of the planet has its weirdos. Kranj has no shortage of them either.
Dead Dildo Drome should be chasing success abroad. This is an incredible machine that grinds with everything it’s got, yet goes about it all remarkably intelligently, which leaves you with a sense of full-blooded tangibility in their music. There’s amazing chemistry between the guys, perception, tightness, a rock-solid and untamed stance! Dead Dildo Drome answer only to those engines driving them, running in one single gear! The top one! The playground of a dead dildo? There’s no bigger lie. A diamond-hard dildo is damn alive and bestially thrusting. If it comes rolling up near you, you don’t exactly need to hide behind a burqa, but do bring a cup for the family jewels. A top-notch show. A show that carries you off and that you don’t come back from for a good while! A band that fills the whole place with energy!
The 7th Donw Town festival was a total success. Three bands, three different musical faces of his majesty, the one we sleep with and commune with every day. The kingdom of metal. All three bands are special, and with their home-grown character they carve out a niche in the extreme branches of metal and enrich it in the process! We can be openly proud. Of Downtown! Of Slovenian metal! Long may they live!
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